Surviving "Duncan Hines Family" Restaurants

The restaurants listed in Duncan Hines' Adventures in Good Eating were considered part of the "Duncan Hines Family" and invited to a big-city banquet each year. Hines recommended over 9,000 restaurants in his published guidebooks from 1936 to 1961. Only a handful of these "Recommended by Duncan Hines" restaurants survive.

The thread that Ketteract started inspired me to search for a definitive list of the remaining restaurants, but I came up empty. As the saying goes, when the going gets rough, the Roadfooders get going.

A CHALLENGE

Find a vintage Adventures in Good Eating book by Mr. Duncan Hines (HINT - Here are links to online copies of the 1945 and 1959 versions) and identify any remaining restaurants recommended by Duncan. I’ll list them here and we will create the definitive list I was looking for.

It is actually pretty easy. I purchased a 1948 version of the guide and scanned through the Wisconsin listings. I was immediately able to identify five restaurants that are still in operation. Take a look at your state or region and see what you can find.

HONOR ROLL OF THE DUNCAN HINES ORIGINALSOne of the things that has captured my interest from the various lists is that several of the 164 restaurants first recommended by Duncan Hines in his 1935 Christmas card list remain in operation. My final count is 37, or about a 23% survival rate after 80 years. Some of the names and locations on the list are a bit off, but I think Duncan was using the best information or memory at that time since he was not charging for the info. Six of the originals are now B&B's.

For years the Park View Inn in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia was a Duncan Hines mainstay. I ate there as recently as 2002. Sometime since then it has changed its name to The Country Inn, but that seems to be the only change. It's pretty much the same place that Duncan Hines knew in the 1930s.

The Greenbriar resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia was long a Duncan Hines destination. It still has its elegance to this day, although since the 1930s they have added a few more restaurants to the complex.

I'm only going to mention this restaurant because it has been ignored as a roadfood destination for as long as the Roadfood website has been in existence--although quite a few Roadfooders have been here. Let me make my case first.

In 1939 Duncan Hines discovered a restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky that served fabulous fried chicken. This chicken was cooked in a iron skillet. It was called Sanders Court and Cafe and was operated by Harlan and Claudia Sanders. When the restaurant closed in the early 1950s, Harlan Sanders went on the road, selling the materials that made up this fried chicken recipe to restaurants; the only difference was that a pressure cooker had been added to replace the iron skillet. The recipe eventually was transformed into the Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food chain in 1962.

Harlan Sanders took the money he made from his franchise sale and created a restaurant for his wife to operate near Shelbyville, Kentucky which was named Claudia Sanders' Dinner House. It is still in existence. And here's why I think this restaurant might be included in this list, even though it is not geographically correct. Claudia Sanders' Dinner House serves the skillet-cooked fried chicken recipe that Duncan Hines first discovered in 1939.

I'm not going to insist on it, but if the rules for inclusion on this list could be stretched a bit, I'd like to nominate it.

As long as you don't try to persuade me to include KFC, I think we'll be OK.

I think location or name changes are acceptable, as long as there is some firm connection to the original restaurant (especially in this case with the ties to the Colonel and to Duncan). Even menu changes can be justified if the quality remains high. The food we eat has changed significantly in the last 80 years.

I think a tougher issue is listed restaurants that keep the same name and location, but have had a big drop-off in quality. These are places that Duncan would have eliminated from his guides. I think I will add a note to these listings describing how things have degraded.

Jim, I endorse your approach to listing these restaurants. There are a LOT of restaurants that Duncan Hines recommended that he would not set foot in today; their standards are just too low.

As to Kentucky Fried Chicken, when Duncan Hines died in 1959, the chain didn't even exist. So I think we're safe there. Besides, the KFC recipe has been so watered down since from what I ate there 46 years ago that it's only a ghost of what it was in its pressure cooker incarnation. What you get at Claudia Sanders' Dinner House is both the recipe and style of preparation (pan fried) that Duncan Hines experienced.

Commander's Palace is listed in the 1961 edition of Adventures in Good Eating (p. 136). The guidebook says, "This is one of New Orleans' historic old places. Specialties: Soft shell turtle stew, crabmeat Imperiale, stuffed flounder.

I went through guidebooks from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s and could find nothing for Bern's Steakhouse.

I think the Middlebury Inn in Middlebury, Vermont should be included on the list. It was in some of Duncan Hines' first guidebooks in the mid-1930s. From what I can tell, their restaurant seems to be carrying on the quality that Hines was recommending to weary travelers.

@JRPfeff, I am loving your thread, and wanted so much to make a North Carolina contribution for my home state, but came up empty handed. I did find one reference to a restaurant in Louisiana, where I have family and history. Galatoire's was in operation during Duncan Hine's touring time, we know he was in that state, and the restaurant still exists. I don't own the books to verify this, but perhaps it may qualify for the Louisiana listing?

I am happy to hear that you are enjoying this thread. I'm enjoying researching and writing this.

I have a feeling that most of the 80+ year old restaurants in New Orleans were listed in Duncan's books. They have such a great dining tradition and high standards there. To survive that long in New Orleans you have to be one of the best.

It isn't easy to pull restaurants out of the air, but when you get a copy of a guidebook you'll have some "of course" moments and some "oh, really?" moments, too. When I looked through the NC listings, I found the Carolina Inn where my wife and I had dined. They certainly have maintained excellent food standards. I'm just not very familiar with the rest of the state.

Here is a list of restaurants from the 1945 issue of Adventures in Good Eating along with some information about each.

Outside Angola, Indiana there is the Potawatomi Inn in Pokagon State Park which has a restaurant associated with it. This restaurant is a park concession operated by a private business.Near MItchell, Indiana is a similar operation, the Spring Mill Inn, at Spring Mill State Park.Both of these restaurants associated with these parks are still in operation.

In downtown Nashville, Indiana is the Nashville House, known for their fried biscuits and apple butter. Not my first choice for a meal in Nashville, but the food is pretty good.

I have had some contact with a couple of listed Kentucky establishments over the years.Ashland, Kentucky was the home of the Henry Clay Hotel and its restaurant. At the time that I was there, in 1968, the hotel was still operating and the basement had been leased to the U. S. Government for use as a military induction center. While I know they must have fed us lunch, I'm afraid that I don't remember anything about the meal. The hotel was closed and converted to an apartment house named the Henry Clay House in 1975.

Louisville, Kentucky was home to The Brown Hotel, known for the Hot Brown Sandwich. This hotel also closed, in 1971, and was used as an office building for several years before it was restored and reopened as a hotel in the mid 1980's. Now known as the Camberley Brown Hotel, it again serves the hot brown in its restaurants. While I never ate here, I had begun to plan a trip to have a hot brown back about 1980 until I discovered it had closed.

Battle Creek, Michigan had the restaurant in the Hart Hotel at one time. It too has fallen on hard times, and the hotel building is presently owned by the Church of Scientology.

Now for some good news. Zehnder's Restaurant in Frankenmuth, Michigan is still in business, and it is still in the hands of the family that started it. And Schuler's Restaurant in Marshall, Michigan is also still operating, with the 4th generation of the Schuler family in charge.

Lebanon, Ohio is the home of the Golden Lamb, still operating over 200 years since it opened.

Columbus, Ohio, was the home of Marzetti's Restaurant until it closed in 1972.

I was in Louisville last week and actually stayed at The Brown Hotel. I just couldn't bring myself to spend $22 for an open-faced turkey sandwich with a bunch of stuff on it that I am not sure I'd like.

Come to think of it, I am not sure that I'd spend $22 on an open-faced turkey sandwich if it were piled high with macaroni and cheese and chocolate sauce.

Wait. That doesn't sound good, either. I guess I meant that I wouldn't pay $22 for an open-faced turkey sandwich if it were topped with a bunch of things that I like more than that which tops a Hot Brown.

I stayed at the Brown Hotel two years ago. I had the hot brown. I found it to be very average. Everything at the Brown was expensive, rooms as well as food. Paying for two rooms for two days, I spent $1000, not including tax. And then there was the food, which wasn't cheap.